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Then Sister Clare got out a small ceremonial drum and started chanting with the rest of the Buddhists monks in the room.
To be sure, it wasn't a typical night in a Lancaster County Mennonite church.
And yet, as odd a sight as it must must have been for many, this collection of Japanese and American monks — promoting peace by walking from their Massachusetts monastery to Washington, D.C., to talk with the president — seemed to be clicking with people who saw them carrying signs and chanting along Route 30 earlier in the day.
"We see people in pickup trucks, people in those giant rigs. If they get close enough to see our signs, they honk, give us the peace sign and even the air horn," said Sister Nancy Smith, who's on the 55-day trek from her monastery in upstate New York. "We understand these are conservative communities, and although we get some shouts that we think are not positive, the majority are positive. The time is right. The time has come."
Smith was talking about a time for peace and an end to nuclear armament. She said she protested the Vietnam War and didn't see the readiness in people's faces that she's sees now.
"This is a marvelous experience that's so different than (the Vietnam era), when there was always someone across the street yelling or cursing at you," she told a community circle gathered Tuesday night in the basement of East Chestnut Street Mennonite Church, where the trekkers spent the night and had dinner. "There's something about the walk that touches people deeply."
A core group of 10 monks are making the journey from the Peace Pagoda in Leverett, Mass., a Buddhist monastery whose members have a tradition of walking to spread the ideals of peace and nonviolence. But other people of different faiths have dropped in for all or part of the journey, which started Feb. 13 and will end April 8.
When Bob Webber of Lancaster Interchurch Peace Witness learned that the group was going to pass through the county, he worked to arrange for places of worship or private homes for them to sleep after their average day's walk of 15 miles.This is important, he said, because, by custom, monks don't ask for donations but depend on charity to do their work.
The group has found that curiosity often leads to generosity. Smith said that when they visit a Dunkin' Donuts to use the bathroom, people invariably ask what they're marching for and chip in to help fund their effort. And they usually leave with a box or two of donuts as well.
"People will just give us money," she said, including one person who handed her a roll of bills tied with a flower.
It was senior monk the Rev. Gyoway Kato who came up with the idea of the walk as a way of responding to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
"People were frozen in fear. We didn't know what to do," walk coordinator Tim Bullock said. "We didn't want to speak out because we didn't want to look unpatriotic or too radical. So Brother Kato said, 'Let's take a walk.'"
After six years of walking for peace in Massachusetts, the monks extended their reach last year to Washington, D.C.
Sister Clare said the walk promotes three themes: renouncing war, shifting from a war economy to a peace economy and promoting nuclear disarmament.
And she's spreading the word about Article 9 of the Constitution of Japan, added after World War II. It declares that the nation sincerely aspires for international peace and that "the right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized," she said. Over the decades, when politicians tried to strike Article 9 from Japan's Constitution, citizens shot down their efforts, remembering the hardship and utter destruction the country had suffered.
Now Sister Clare said she thinks the United States might be ready for an Article 9 of its own.
"People are at a real point where this may start to make a lot of sense," Sister Clare said Tuesday. "I feel like the time for Article 9 to shine is here. It's a well-kept secret for many decades ... but people are sick of war-making. Article 9 is here, and we're seeding it to see where it goes."
E-mail: slindt@lnpnews.com
